Final Flight

Qazi extracted a bankbook from his jacket pocket and passed it to Sakol, who examined the signatures carefully, then placed it in his trouser pocket without comment.

“That’s a lot of money, Sakol.”

“I’ve supplied things you could purchase nowhere else. I risked my butt doing it. I earned the fucking money.”

“Indeed. Have you enough money now?”

Sakol pursed his lips momentarily. “Jarvis is a nuclear weapons expert.” He smoked his cigarette while Qazi sat in silence and watched the dust swirl in the sunbeam coming through the one window.

“Your help on my next project would be worth one million dollars,” Qazi said when the burning tip of Sakol’s cigarette had almost reached the filter. “Half in advance.”

“The agency and the Mossad are after us both. They want us dead. Ding dong dead. Blown away.”

“Indeed! What did you expect? Why do you think we paid you so much money?”

“I want two million, half in advance. You Arabs always like to haggle. People eventually forget about stolen antiaircraft missiles and kidnappings, but they won’t forget about anything that smells of nuclear weapons. Not ever.”

“One million real American dollars in your numbered Swiss account, Sakol, and if you are very lucky, you will live to spend it.”

Sakol threw back his head and laughed harshly. “You amaze me, Qazi. You could have killed me anytime, and only now you threaten me. My sheep-fucking Arab friend, you can kiss my ass. I’ve taken precautions.”

“Ah, yes. The letters to be mailed in the event of your death. The ones you gave your sister in Chicago, which she keeps in a safe deposit box at the State Street National Bank. Box number One Five Oh Eight.”

Sakol helped himself to another cigarette. He struck a match and held it to the cigarette with twisted and gnarled fingers without nails. The flame did not waver. He inhaled deeply, then blew the match out with a cloud of smoke that engulfed Qazi. “Two million. You know damn well I’m not scared of you.”

“One million, one hundred thousand. Half in advance. The Americans will learn of your aid to our cause.”

Henry Sakol laughed, a harsh guttural laugh that filled the room. “You really know your bastards, don’t you, Qazi? That’s right! I want those arrogant, snot-nosed, Ivy League pig fuckers to know I helped you screw ’em. Right in their tight little cherry asses.” He slapped the bankbook on the arm of his chair, then handed it over. “What’s the job?”

“Has Jarvis seen you?”

“No, he hasn’t. The guys you sent to help were competent.”

“Then I’ll explain.” Qazi talked while Sakol chain-smoked. The sunbeam coming through the one window crept up the wall and finally disappeared, leaving the room in growing darkness.

* * *

The phone rang. “Captain Grafton.”

“Jake, this is the Admiral. I’m here in Flag Ops with Captain James and Doctor Hartman. Would you come over, please.”

“I’ll be right there, sir.”

Jake gave the message board to Airman Smith to lock away and rooted in his desk drawer for his baseball cap. He needed to be covered to salute the admiral, and aboard ship everyone routinely wore ball caps. He found his and settled it on his thinning hair.

In Flag Ops, the commanding officer of the United States, Captain Laird James, was discussing a mechanical problem in the forward reactor with Admiral Parker when Jake arrived. Laird James was in his late forties and tall and lean, without an ounce of fat. In those few times Jake had dined with him, James had only picked at his food. His hair was shot through with gray and the skin of his face was stretched tightly around a small mouth. He never smiled, or at least he never had in Jake’s presence.

The doctor was looking over the shoulders of several members of the watch team as they worked the displays on the Navy Tactical Data System (NTDS) computer. Jake stopped several steps short of the admiral’s raised padded chair and waited. When Parker nodded toward Jake, he stepped over and saluted. The doctor joined them.

“Doc Hartman wants to ground you,” Cowboy Parker said without preliminaries. “He says that your night vision is unacceptable.”

“Yessir.”

“Why don’t you want to be grounded?”

“Admiral, we’ve got these flight crews stretched as tight as rubber bands. We’re getting all the flying out of them that anyone has a right to expect. We lost one crew last night. And no matter how careful we are, we may lose another. These men all know that. I can’t ask them to keep flying unless I put myself on the flight schedule. It’s that simple.”

“How long would it take to get a new CAG out here from the States,” Parker asked Captain James.

“A couple months, if we’re lucky,” James said gloomily.

Parker shifted in his chair several times, then stood up and stretched.

“What do you think, Doc?”

“Sir, the regulations say …”

“How many times did you check Captain Grafton’s eyes?”

“I didn’t, sir. A first-class corpsman did.”

“So you don’t even know if the corpsman’s result, or diagnosis, is correct?”

“Well …”

“Assuming the corpsman is correct, could this be a temporary condition that might clear up?”

“I suppose anything’s possible, but—”

“He said that maybe nicotine is contributing to the vision loss,” Jake put in quickly. “I got a bottle of vitamin pills to take. And maybe quitting smoking will help.”

Parker looked at the doctor with one eyebrow raised.

“It’s possible nicotine is contributing to the loss,” the doctor said.

“You personally recheck Captain Grafton’s eyes in two weeks,” Parker said, “and let me know the results.”

“Yessir.”

“Can you live with that, Laird?” Captain James had been ordered aboard the United States while she was still under construction, so he knew every frame, every space, almost every bolt and rivet, all ninety-five thousand tons worth. He knew all the systems in the ship better than any other living human. He had no time for incompetents or fools, preferring instead to transfer those officers whom he concluded fell into one or both categories with fitness reports that ensured they were professionally doomed. His department heads scrambled to match his knowledge of their domain and lived in terror of his wrath. Jake doubted that Captain James could lead a horse to water, but as the chief administrator of a fifty-six-hundred-man institution, he was ruthless efficiency incarnate. In short, he was a perfect bastard.

“Yes, sir,” Laird James said sourly. Although Jake was not under his command — indeed, under the new air wing system, James actually needed Jake’s permission to fire the ship’s weapons — still, it was his ship, and if Jake crashed coming aboard, James would be splattered with his share of the blame.

“Thanks, Doctor. And Laird, I’ll talk to you later.” Both the doctor and the CO saluted and left the space.

“Can you still see to fly at night, Jake?”

“Yessir. Not as well as I used to, but well enough. If I couldn’t, I’d be the first to know.”

“I’m banking on that. Just go easy on yourself. Do most of your flying in the daytime. Are you flying tonight?”

“No, sir.”

“How did it go this evening with the helmet?”

“You should have seen them looking at it. They’re thinking. A man or two may quit, but most of ’em will stick like glue since they’ve been offered an out. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t stubborn as hell; they’d have washed out long ago.”

“Go get a decent night’s sleep.”

“Thanks, Cowboy.” Jake saluted and Parker returned the salute with a smile.